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May 26, 2013

How I store my stud earrings

A place for everything and everything in its place has always been a guiding motto in my life. I love - one might even go so far as to say "crave" - organization and delight in finding storage solutions that range from plain and practical to fun and creative for all of my collections. I like to think that the approach outlined in this post falls into both of those categories.
Like approximately 10% of the population, I'm allergic to nickel (highly allergic), which means that all of the earrings I make or buy, have to be nickel-free. At various times in my life, these have been easier to find then others, but over the years I've amassed a wonderful little collection of earrings that I can safely pop in any time, anywhere without the slightest worry of a bad case of contact dermatitis breaking out.

As my collection of stud earrings in particular grew, I began to feel like I needed a better way to store them than the perforated metal earring storage hanger I'd bought several years back from Claire's (it's very cute, don't get me wrong, and I still use it to house some of my hoop and dangle earrings, it just wasn't the most convenient method of storing multiple pairs of studs).

At first I tried stringing them onto a long strip of twill, which looked cute, but wasn't overly practical (and eventually the twill began to break down and get little holes in it and removed and replaced the earrings time and time again).

Next I tried miniature ice cube trays - an idea I recalled reading on a beauty forum some years back - the only problem was, the wee ice cube compartments were so tiny, that (even having fairly small fingers) it wasn't always easy to fish the earrings out, or to see them all at once glance (unless they'd all been arranged facing upwards).

It was while I was cross stitching one afternoon last year that the idea struck me, why not use a tightly woven cross stitch cloth or similar fabric to house my stud earrings. Scurrying to the linen closet, I found just what I was looking for in the form of a cute pale blue woven cotton napkin I'd picked up for something like a dollar at a Fabric Land clearance sale a few years back.

A couple pairs in, and I instantly knew this was the stud earring storage method I'd been searching for!

As you may recall from posts such as this one, I've always been keen on organizing things in a rainbow pattern, which I did with some of the types of stud earrings that I have here. All of them were grouped like with like, regardless of colour, and are instantly visible (and super easily accessible) at a glance.

This woven napkin measures about 14 inches x 10 inches and even with quite a few pairs of earrings on it, still still plenty of room for my collection to grow and expand, as you can see (and should it ever blossom beyond this napkin, I'll just start a second one).

When not in use, I fold the napkin into quarters (it could just as easily be rolled as well) and tuck into a tiny drawer in the counter of our en suite bathroom, where it takes up about the same about of space as a small stack of folded handkerchiefs at most (it's also super lightweight, which makes it an ideal way to take my stud earring collection with me while traveling).

I know that many of you love to collect and wear stud earrings as well, so I thought it was high time I shared this wildly easy, incredibly inexpensive, and massively quick (you can't beat that trio!) method of storing smaller sized earrings.

You could also use a woven fabric like this for dangly earrings as well, just be careful to space them out so that they aren't as prone to tangling, if you're planning on folding or rolling your napkin or piece of cross stitch fabric up.

As mentioned above, I still use my perforated metal earring storage hanger (pictured above), these days, however I reserve it for dangly and hoop earrings, as well as a a few necklaces and one of my favourite floral brooch/hair clips (which you may recall from this spring 2012 apple orchard outfit post).

If you've been trying to find the ideal approach to storing your stud and smaller sized earrings, I encourage you try this woven cloth method out. You could always take things a step further and attach some pretty ribbon, lace, sturdy rickrack, or seam bidding to the top of your fabric as well and then hang it as a decorative (and highly functional) way of displaying your earrings on a wall or the inside of a wardrobe/closet door as well.

So at long last my collection finally has a proper place when it can be seen and utilized in a glance, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Here’s to the hope that you enjoy many years of happy earring collecting and well organized storage now, too!

This is a great idea! I had a bit of an earring fetish a few years ago, but as since wained and I don't wear them as often. I keep mine sorted by colour in my jewelry box (which has small square compartments in it). I don't currently need a spot for overflow, but I'll keep this idea in my back pocket. And love love love it for travelling!

This is a really good idea! I have a lot of my studs stored in a little trinket box at the moment, which works fairly well for me except in terms of finding things. I might give your method a go instead.

That's what I do! I think my sister had the idea, we went through a phase of cross-stitch and then just thought it's a good place to keep the studs together on the aida fabric! We just kept loosing earrings and the metal holders seem to tarnish after a while.

I have a little trinket box with a lid that I store my earrings and rings in. I keep the lid propped up against the box, so I can see the sparkles always. It takes a teensy bit longer to fish out mates, but I love seeing my big box of sparkles! (it makes my heart super happy :) I think this would be the perfect solution for when I travel though.

Dear Jessica, that's a really perfect idea and it looks so good. I admire your cute collection of studs, I like best the umbrella studs and the tiny cupcakes. Have a wonderful week to come with some extra sunshine especially for you.

Such a cute idea, Jess. I might have to give this a try. My sister got me this adorable owl-shaped mesh wire hanger for earrings, which is perfect for the dangly ones. I love it. But I wear a lot of studs when I go to work, which is a pain when it comes to putting them back on the hanger.

Very samrt. I don't wear earrigns much, mainly because my husband doesn't like them, but I have enough to have storage problems.I'm also highly allergic to nickel (it started when I used a pair of stud earrings I got from the States when I was fourteen), but since it's forbidden in earrings in Sweden I haven't encountered it for a couple of decades.

Oh, my dearest Jessica, thank you for your lovely comment on my English adventures. You wrote what I felt in the bottom of my heart. I'm English/British actually and it must have been a mistake that I was born in Bavaria, because I don't like Bavarian food, except pretzels, I don't like beer and Oktoberfest and I don't like to wear the Bavarian traditional costumes. All the time I spent in England I thought: yes, yes, yes, that's the place where I want to be actually. So I think we are some kind of people who were brought to the wrong cradle. But that doesn't mean that I don't like my parents or sisters. I'm only so in love with England and I'm homesick for England at the moment. Best wishes for you, my soulmate.

I thoroughly and completely understand. There are definitely elements of Bavarian culture that I enjoy, but if I could have picked to be born in any one European country, I really would have picked the UK. It's fortunate at least that you're in Europe and can sometimes visit your beloved England. Canada and the UK are both Commonwealth countries, but we're thousands of miles apart and pretty different in most respects. I wish it was quicker to hop over the pond and visit Blighty sometimes, too.

What a fabulous way to store your earrings! I use boxes and try to keep them relatively tidy and categorized....relatively but not quite. I know how limiting metal allergies can be when it comes to earring choice. I used to be quite sensitive to different metals as a teen (I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 12), but I'm glad to say that I grew out of it. I do, however, have flair ups from time to time. xx Shauna

I'm an organization nerd and obsessed with order too, but I've bought The Little Book of Earrings (I found it on Amazon), see my post about it some weeks ago. It is really great and in fact it beats your solution, because you can also hide it among your books in your book shelf if you are afraid of robbery. :)

Thank you very much, honey! One idea that might work well for your French hook earrings would be to get a piece (whatever size you like) of finely "woven" chicken wire, create a wooden frame for it, and slip the earrings onto the wire. Here's a howto to I spotted last year that I bookmarked because it looked so fun and easy to do. http://www.justflewthecoop.com/2012/06/diy-earring-holder.html

I do something similar with my necklaces for travel. I lay out a towel and pin the top and bottom of my necklaces along the towel, then roll it up. I'll pin brooches and stud earrings to any space not taken up. Keeps them tangle free and easily accessible.

Hi Kate, how lovely that you use a similar technique for transporting your jewelry when you travel. That's a great tip for sure!

I used to store my pins like this as well, but then they outgrew the piece of fabric I was housing them on and I moved them to a hanging jewelry storage bag (closet type) instead (I should do a post about that ones of these days, too, come to think of it).

This is such a good idea. I'm going to have to try this because, while it looks cool in photos, having one of those old jewelry boxes brimming with vintage and other bling makes finding a tiny pair of earrings like finding a needle in a haystack at night.

I love this idea!!! I am a neat freak and I have been working on my jewelry box up-cycle. I love having my things organized and this is FAB for earrings!! Thankyou so much for sharing. Best part is you can pull it out and look at all your goodies (in this case earrings) and enjoy them... Love it!!!!

Thank you very much, sweet Joanna! Between my nickel allergy and the fact that I have four holes in each ear (though the top three almost always just have plain faux diamond or other small stone studs in them), I really don't have many clip-on earrings. However, if I did, I think that I would buy a sturdy little faux plant (that could easily sit on the countertop in my powder room) and clip them onto the leaves and (if they'd fit around the width of them) the branches.

If you have a collection of clip-ons, what's your favourite way to store them?

I love this idea. I don't have too many earrings, but my vintage ones are clip-ons. Right now I just store them on a tiered cupcake stand made with vintage plates. It works because I have so few, but I am really trying to up my accessories.

I have the same issue with cheap metals. Early last week I wore a pair of old clip-ons that I have yet to change to sterling posts, and left them on for too long (I can usually handle a few hours before things go bad). My ear lobes are still puffy and the skin is not very pleased with me at the moment. When will I ever learn?!

By the way, I love counted cross stitch, too – I have a couple of massive projects tucked away that I should probably pull out. But these days, my sewing machine keeps me pretty busy!

Thank you very much, my dear. It's wonderful when one can switch out the posts or ear wires on earrings for ones that don't both them, isn't it? If the body of the earring contains the offending metal, that can still be a problem though unfortunately. It's amazing how long afterwards one's skin can be troubled by nickel.

I'll never forget this one time when I was a teenager and I wore a new pair of jeans (with a metal button over the fly) for a few hours. There was nickel in the button (as there so often is on the metal used on jeans) and I developed a terrible rash that wept, bleed and took almost three months to finally clear up. After that, I became incredibly diligent about trying to avoid nickel in anything I wore, and thankfully - though I have been "nickeled" numerous times since - have never had quite as awful a reaction again.

How very lovely that you adore counted cross stitch, too! I really do need to do a bit more that these days myself, too - we need more hours in these days of ours, don't we?

I came over to this post from your post today--I love this idea, especially how portable it is since I'll have to say goodbye to my jewelry box when we move! I may have a piece of fabric that will work perfectly for this.

My pleasure! I'm delighted to know that you found this quick and easy earring storage method appealing as well. Sturdy cloth napkins and similar fabric items (e.g., dish towels) can also work great for storing and/or transporting a few brooches as well. I usually adopt that approach when travelling with some of my beloved brooches, as it's lightweight, reliable and makes it so easy to see which pins I have to hand while away from home.

Hi Jenny, thank you very much for your comment and interest in those darling earrings. Though CV is now retired, I do try to reply to continued comments here as often as I can. :)

If memory serves me right, those earrings hailed from the accessories chain Claire's (http://www.claires.com). They tend to have a relatively fast turn over of merchandise, so I'd be quite surprised if this exact pair was still in stock, but as they do sell a lot of really cute/quirky/kitschy earrings, there's always a chance that they might have something similar in stock these days.

I'm Jessica, a lifelong lover of all things antique and vintage, especially those from the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

This blog is my visual scrapbook in which I record and share my thoughts on the multitude of sources, people and products that inspire and feed a modern gal's addiction to the past. I also post about the vintage clothes, hairstyles and make-up looks that I adore wearing.

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